Partial Panel for Airplane Sims…

I finally decided to make real switch and knob panels for my sim pit. I used the 80/20 extrusions for my sim and it has a shelf to hold a steering wheel for driving. The wheel motor sits back so I had the shelf edge to mount switches and knobs. Wiring it up now. I am using the Leo Bodnar BBI-32 interface and it’s in a box behind the far left panel. I just used regular 80/20 hardware to bolt the panels down. There’s holes between the panel housings to route wires and then dive under the shelf to come back up in the BBI-32 housing to keep it all neat. Plenty of clearance when the wheel is mounted for driving.

All this fit on the BBI-32 with one exception. The bigger single knob on the radio panel has a pushbutton function and that was left off. It’s intended to be cockpit lighting though so doesn’t “need” a pushbutton function. The twin knobs like on GPS or radios do have the pushbutton function. I got really lucky I didn’t need a second BBI-32.

I fly in VR so grabbing a mouse to click the virtual buttons or knobs gets a little old. Even with these having no real relation to any actual aircraft, what I think will happen is I’ll get used to these locations and just reach for the right control even though I will usually be looking somewhere else in the virtual cockpit.

I put power, mags, and starter button on the left, then all the lights, fuel pump and primer on a little panel, then radio knobs/buttons, and then GPS. I’ll still need to mouse some things but hopefully most stuff will now be on the HOTAS or this panel.

Will add the stl files if anyone else is interested…